How will future generations receive stories and information? As a media industry, what responsibility do we have to help shape the future today? What place will publishers and the media occupy in our society in the future? What would happen if…

As a contribution to the necessary social discourse, we started “Dream Ursula” at Frankfurt Book Fair 2019. The name comes from the science fiction author Ursula Le Guin, who passed away in 2018. Following in her footsteps, science fiction authors Teresa Hannig, Thore Hansen and Klaudia Seibel from the Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar presented their visions of publishing in the distant future and discussed their controversial visions.

Comeback of narration?

Theresa Hannig imagines a comeback of real narrative as the oldest form of media mediation. Specially trained narrators ensure that the images are created in the listener’s mind and are a counterweight to prefabricated content.

Do authors transmit their stories directly into our brains?

Thore Hansen speculates about the direct networking of the author with the consumer, for example about brain implants. There will be communities that share similar content. The question then arose as to whether such forms of mediation are desirable at all, since they could potentially be abused. On the other hand, similar things are already being worked on today, such as implants that enable colour vision. Or think of existing devices with which brain waves can be read out and used to control devices. So the step into reality doesn’t seem far off any more.

Will the book remain?

Based on today’s forms of publishing, Klaudia Seibel considers that the decisive question will be where the content lies and how it can be made available in the event of technical and social changes (wars, lack of energy supply) and predicts that the printed book will not disappear completely.

Conclusion

Everyone agreed that there will be publishers and editors in the future who ensure the quality of published content on curated channels – and that we as consumers and part of the media world will all have a say in where the journey takes us! We, the knk Group, will certainly continue to make a contribution to this.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash